Finally, These Losers Get Some Nice Words

I’m probably the happiest guy in Los Angeles because of the Dodgers’ improved play, and the chance it affords me now to write a more positive column.

That has been a goal of mine for almost two years.

Sometimes I get so mad at myself for the crummy things I write about the Dodgers I just want to e-mail me and tell me where to go, but it seems as though someone always beats me to it.

The Dodgers’ rebound from that 0-3 start, however, has saved me from myself. In fact, I’m almost embarrassed to say that if the Big Goofs had continued to lose, I probably would have called Jim Esterbrooks, that San Diego Padre fan who got into it with Dodger Boy a year ago to this day, just to make sure he knew what Dan Evans looked like this weekend at Qualcomm Stadium.

OK, so I did call him. But I never sent the picture of the Dodgers’ new general manager. All I told the guy was to look for someone who appears clueless, and if Esterbrooks picks Evans out of the crowd, I’ll be really surprised, what with all the Charger fans down there who probably also go to baseball games.

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LAST WEEK the Padres had Esterbrooks throw out the ceremonial first pitch before one of their games. I’m surprised the Dodgers didn’t think of that.

A year ago he was sitting in Section 29 with his son and wife behind home plate in Qualcomm Stadium and heckling Gary Sheffield, making him no different than most Dodger fans, when Dodger GM Kevin Malone took exception. Words were exchanged, Malone challenged Esterbrooks to fight, and a few days later Malone was no longer the GM of the Dodgers.

“You know, as a Padres fan the last thing I really wanted to do was have Malone go away,” said Esterbrooks, who threw out the first pitch because of his community involvement and work with the San Diego County Office of Education.

Esterbrooks was back Saturday and behind home plate for the second game of the Dodger-Padre series, and I swear to you he did not make faces at Terry Mulholland just because of me. He said he thought of it himself before I suggested it or begged him to do it.

“The Padres will finish higher this year; the Dodgers will finish fourth,” Esterbrooks said. “L.A. has a $40-million team with a $100-million payroll.”

I hear something like that, of course, in my new position as positive columnist and I understand why Malone wanted to pop the guy. But I guess all I can do is lead by example in this space, and when people make fun of our slugs Eric Karros and Chad Kreuter, just defend them to the best of my ability.

For example, Karros is batting (.290) more than he weighs (216) right now, and I can’t remember the last April when that happened. This also gives him incentive to keep his weight down. As for Kreuter, I don’t care what anyone says, I’m a firm believer he will get a hit this season.

You know, I kind of like this new positive approach to our crummy teams--I can’t wait to try it with USC this fall.

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I WOULD understand if my wife was doing the home cooking: Before Saturday night’s game against Oakland, the Angels had compiled a 2-18 record in their last 20 games at Edison Field extending into last season.

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MAYBE IT’S just time for a pep talk: The Angels have compiled a 12-36 mark since the organization extended Manager Mike Scioscia’s contract and guaranteed his pay through 2005.

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THERE WAS more than $2 million on the line Friday for the pick six at Santa Anita and if you sought help in the paper from our expert picker in Bob Mieszerski--he went 0 for 6. And yet in his Insider Trading box in Saturday’s paper, under the category, “Who’s Not” hot, Misery listed jockey Jorge Chavez, because he has had only one winner in his last 14 mounts. At least he had a winner.

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THE LOS ANGELES Amazons, an expansion team in the Women’s Professional Football League, conducted tryouts Saturday. They found a 5-foot-7 quarterback for the full contact tackle team that begins play Aug. 3, but they still don’t have an answer for a New England offensive tackle, who stands 6-4 and weighs 340.

I told Amazon owner Gale Hulett I’d talk to some of my wife’s cousins.

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TELL ME if you can identify the celebrities on the following list: Bob Cuomo, Dule Hill, Patrick Warburton, Vic Seper and Patrick Stewart.

I mention this, because I gave some thought to covering the Pro/Celebrity Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach race Saturday, but I had never heard of these so-called famous people. Now if you think you know Cuomo or Seper, shame on you. They take up space in our sports department and are famous only for eating a lot.

I will say this, our editor in control Saturday night, Claire Noland, swooned when I mentioned Stewart was in the area. She said she had been in an elevator with him. I thought maybe she was confused, and thought I was talking about Larry Stewart, our TV/radio columnist, but before I could say anything, she said, “One of the Sexiest Men in People magazine, and if he wasn’t he should have been.”

I still have no idea if we were talking about Patrick or Larry.

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TODAY’S LAST word comes in an e-mail from Nancy Mellen:

“You wrote about bad golfers, and said they were worse than anyone, and ‘that includes Dwyre and the women I’ve watched play.’ If you wrote that same sentence and substituted blacks, Jews, Hispanics, gays, etc., where the word ‘women’ appears, you’d be fired so fast your head would be spinning.”

Those good people can play golf, so they don’t fit in that sentence.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com.